When is a New Era, Not a New Era; Jennie Formby steps down as Labour's General Secretary, as the Labour Party embarks on a reshaping exercise, it seems no one wants to talk about the ‘elephant in the room’, can the Labour Party be reunited under Keir Starmer in the wake of the Labour Report on antisemitism, 2014 – 2019’ because ignoring this report isn’t a viable strategy for unity or to be seen as a government in waiting

Dear All

In politics, one thing is constant, that is resignations after a change of leadership happen, now that the Corbyn era of left wing politics is over, it almost seems natural that Keir Starmer would want a clear out. You might think this represents a fresh start, but you would be wrong, two opposing ideologies sit uncomfortably in the Labour Party. On one side you have the left, portrayed as ‘the hard left’ and on the other the right wing of the Labour Party who typically are referred to as Blairites by some and ‘moderates’ and ‘progressives’ by themselves and the media. The Labour Party with a new leader hasn’t had a ‘Starmer bounce’ in the polls but it could be rationalised that due to coronavirus normal politics are some way off.

Normal politics for the Labour Party are even further away, because of one document, the internal report titled; ‘The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 – 2019’. Running to 851 pages, it is a document worth reading as it shows how elements in the party, and employed by the party sought to damage and destroy the chances of a Labour Government in the 2017 election.

You would think such an explosive report would demand an inquiry, and you would be right, but rather than address the issues, instead we will get an inquiry into how the report was leaked and by whom. For Keir Starmer, this report is #Watergate because it gives the left a legitimate platform of grievance. So, what about the people named in the report connected to serious current figures in the party, what happens to them?

Nothing!

And this is the crux of the matter, you see in order for the Labour Party to become electable, both sides of the party have to be able to work together, or at least compromise for the greater good. If you have read the report, do you see that happening? A question which follows on is, ‘if there isn’t trust in the party can anyone who is the leader sell a disunited party to the country as a credible alternative to the current Government’?

Basically no!

The problems of the Labour Party are further compounded by the fact that the Labour Party in Scotland and Wales needs a revamp. Scotland is particularly bad in terms of representation at both MP and MSP level when it comes to first past the post seats. There is one Labour MP in Scotland re-elected in 2019, Ian Murray, his success is based on local issues and convincing people to switch to Labour from Conservatives and Lib Dems. But before you ask, his seat has affluent areas which reject the SNP; this is what has pushed him over the line. Murray was staunch anti Corbyn right from the start; he was part of the drip drip effect early on who attempted to push Corbyn towards resignation by refusing to serve in his Shadow Cabinet.

Murray is on the right wing of the Labour Party.

So, what happened to the Labour Party? To understand this properly you have to look at Scotland back in the nineties and early 2000’s. The party was taken over by middle class careerists, some straight out of Universities who ended up as candidates. At this point in time, the party commanded huge majorities. We are talking thousands and thousands and thousands of votes in working class seats. At this point, imagine you are a punter with a problem, so you go see your Labour MP or your MSP for help. So, you have a middle class university careerist along with their middle class careerist staff, or family waiting to help you. But despite having a case, they don’t help you, but the majority for the MP or MSP is so huge, what is the lost of one vote or a family of voters. Over time, being ignored and being humiliated and treated like dirt and basically shat on by a UK Labour Government saw the Labour vote in Scotland to utterly collapse.

This disengagement from the public wasn’t just by the left but also the right wing of the Party elected officials to public office. And, while the party held public office, there was no interest at all or mechanism to fix it because the party had power! With the elected representatives in Labour Party abandoning the working class, up pops the SNP, right time; right place to take the vote assisted by the Westminster expenses scandal. This was a tipping point, because it allowed the SNP to wrestle Holyrood from Labour control. Once gone, between the years of 2007 to 2011, the Scottish Labour Party wasn’t an effective opposition which led to an even worse defeat. You could go on and on about Scottish Labour defeats from 2007 to date and how bad their campaigns were, how out of touch the leadership were, but it is all a matter of record. In Scotland, regardless of whether the leader was from ‘the left’ like Richard Leonard or ‘the right’ like Kezia Dugdale, it made no difference.

Latest polling at present will see no improvement in Scottish Labour from being the third party of Scottish politics at Holyrood. The Labour Party has a slogan, ‘For the Many, not the Few’, but in the years from 2007, ‘Could do, won’t do’ is what many felt the service of elected representatives meant. Incidentally, although the ‘For the Many, not the Few’ is catchy, it is unrepresentative of the party’s choice of candidates; middle class university educated, these are the people who become leaders or senior in the party. The point of what I have written above is that the Labour Party has lost its way; it has also split into two distinct camps that are as much apart as they could be politically.

Keir Starmer couldn’t wait to wholesale remove Corbyn allies in the Shadow Cabinet. When this type of thing happens, the narrative is not about who is kicked out but rather about ‘the new team’. I would ask is the new Shadow Chancellor better than the previous one? Or was his removal part of an ideology of what is basically about a purge. If ‘the left’ have no place, where is their incentive to work constructive or even work for or on behalf of the party? In the wake of the new leader results, Jennie Formby, a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, has now stood down as Labour's General Secretary. She said now is the "right time" to resign as Keir Starmer begins to reshape the party.

I recently spoke to someone maybe involved in the reshaping of the party, which won’t be an easy task, because the whole project is ruined. How that reshaping exercise will pan out we will see in a post coronavirus world. But changing structure is as equally important as changing policies, and changing structures must also apply to Labour HQ staffers who put fractionalisation ahead of the party. Like a jigsaw, if the reshaping of the party doesn’t address all the issues, then no prizes for guessing the next set of Labour Party election results at a UK level. This issue of Scotland must also be addressed, but the noise of federalism is the wrong message to sell to pro UK Scots. One thing early on I realised is that Keir Starmer doesn’t get Scotland, if he goes the route of federalism solves everything, the party in Scotland wouldn’t garner seats in order to put him into Number 10.

To fix Scottish Labour is a huge task, there have been claims particularly by Jim Murphy when he claim to have done it which I didn’t believe, and as the 2015 Westminster election showed, neither did the public. 12 weeks out from that election, I wrote a post, basically called, ‘fucking it all up’. It was rather apt because that campaign started badly and when downhill faster. Is getting a drink at a football game, the most pressing injustice in Scotland? Add to it, it was a Westminster election which meant, no matter how many Labour MPs were elected they couldn’t change the law in Scotland. This is what I mean when I say that the Scottish Labour Party where treating people with contempt; the party was to be wiped out at the ballot box returning one MP.

Finally, in politics, we sometimes hear of the phrase ‘steadying the ship’, but in the departure of Jennie Formby has her resignation achieved that, I think not. As long as there is an ‘US and Them’ mentality in the party, and the Labour Report I think establishes that, the road back to power doesn’t look good. In leaving as Gen Sec, Jennie Formby said her two years in the role had been a "huge privilege" and wished Sir Keir the "very best of luck" in leading Labour into the next General Election. Her time as General Secretary had been a turbulent period for the party as it was rocked by anti-Semitism claims and rows over Mr Corbyn's leadership. What ‘the left’ didn’t have was a legitimate grievance, in the Labour Report, they do, and although there is an inquiry, Starmer can’t kick that can down the road and quietly do nothing about the contents. If the party can’t find a way forward together, the reshaping exercise will become another exercise in futility.

Yours sincerely

George Laird

The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University